I write words about things that are on my mind.

i DO work

July 10, 2008

On my way back to work from lunch i saw a man and woman sitting on the side of the road by an intersection and the man was holding the classic piece of cardoboard sign asking for help. Normally this just makes me uncomfortable and I try to avoid people like this. I only caught on sentence of his sign and it read I DO work! This got my attention. If I would have had any cash, I probably would have given it up. Then I thought, how far off are a lot of us from holding up our own cardboard signs? I work too but it doesnt mean I can really afford gas, or electricity. We are all working but it still seems like there is no money. Things are getting really bad out there and people have to chose whether to get food or buy gas for their cars so they can get back to work and still not be able to pay their bills. We shouldn’t have to decidethis. Isn’t the richest country? You’re telling me in the richest country in the world, we have to chose between food and gas? What is going on? I am seriously getting nervous. In the 30’s when they had the depression, i mean money or not it already was a depression. No money, no cars, no internet. They weren’t too put out, they already were growing their own food and living off the land pretty much. They didn’t have to drive 80 miles round trip per day to get to a job to be able to live. They weren’t spending 20 clams a day on coffee and burritos. Things have changed. Humans are losing basic survival skills and for those of us born in the late 70’s and beyond, Im pretty sure we were born without those skills. We were taken home from the hospital and taken straight to Mcdonalds. Roughing it meant some stinkin hotel on the way to vacation in FL. Saturday mornings weren’t spent plowing anything, we were watching smurfs. We don’t know what to do! We can’t farm anything, I can barely grow 3 roma tomatoes, what the hell good are those 3 tomatoes going to do? I can’t ride my bike 80 miles a day to go to work. No one can buy a house and that means we flush most of our money right down the shitter. Where are we going with all this? Are we going to be in a giant homeless shelter soon? Do you think I can bring my 3 dogs, 3 cats, bunny, fish, oh and all my kids there? Do they allow that? We need a plan and here is mine, and if you are a friend of mine you need to listen up right now, we need to buy some land somewhere (it has to be warm as we will be living in tents) and start living off the land right now. We’ll get some gardening books and figure it out but at least we won’t have to buy gas and we won’t have to stand on the corner saying I DO WORK.